Jon Ossoff’s loss in Georgia, while disappointing, shouldn’t demoralize anyone who canvassed, gave money, or voted for the candidate. Is this a rationalization? No, a simple reality check.
Ossoff ran in a solidly GOP district, in a special election that usually results in low turnout relative to Presidential election years. He was a good candidate, not a great one, competing in a decent economy against an undistinguished but solid Republican candidate.
Under normal circumstances, this isn’t a winning formula. To get close and lose feels like drinking curdled milk, but it isn’t something to agonize over.
With the specter of Trump looming over the Republic (and planet), it is easy to forget that politics usually follows predictable patterns. Just as polarization brought Republicans home to vote for Trump, however far-fetched this once would have seemed, it largely kept them in the fold this time as well. For much of the GOP faithful, voting is a habit. For much of the emerging Democratic coalition, that isn’t yet the case.
Forcing the GOP to bring out its big guns and spend lots of money—to hold what on paper should be a safe seat--isn’t a negligible achievement.
True, it is a big investment without immediate payoff for Democrats, but unless Democrats can use their across-the-board economic advantage (Hillary Clinton won most of the richest and most economically vibrant counties, if memory serves) in race after race a victory in 2018 and 2020 will be elusive. Frank Capra this ain’t. As contemptible as the post-Citizen United rules are, Democrats will have to exploit them before retiring them for good.
To be sure, winning is better than losing. Politics is not about moral victories. But beating prior benchmarks (in this case, reducing the margin in the prior election by some 12 points or more) is a first mundane step in the long road back to a Democratic majority in statehouses and in the House.
Any strong Democrat contemplating a run shouldn’t be put off, especially if their district is more favorable. Different districts need different Democratic candidates and respect for why one size does not fit all. Ossoff’s loss does show, unsurprisingly, that it is hard to galvanize young voters, keep independents on board, and to peel off relatively moderate Republicans at the same time—the hat trick needed to win a district with this tough profile. (And Hillary’s margin in this district, in retrospect, isn’t looking too shabby…)
At least one prominent Republican said that last week’s shooting in DC won the election for Handel. He is probably right. In an election this tight, the last big story has an impact. The closing GOP ads on the shooting likely struck a nerve, especially in turning out Republicans. The GOP is adroit and shameless at fear mongering, whether it is Ebola (a huge factor in the 2014 midterms, immediately ignored after Election Day), Colin Kaepernick, Kathy Griffin, Willie Horton or whatever cultural bogey of the moment is in play.
The Right has been methodically building its coalition (starting with the home school movement), along with the apparatus for disenfranchisement, for a generation. It will take at least that long to overcome Trump and the Republican Party that is hosting him.
The key is to stick together, fight voter suppression, keep pointing out to voters of all stripes how Trump has betrayed his promises to them and the country. Play down the cultural divide and contempt for the President, though the first is real and the latter richly warranted. It always backfires. Expect a tilted playing field and beat it. Politics is the slow boring of hard boards. I think we’ll live to remember that the Ossoff campaign, though it didn’t result in victory, was a moment when the GOP’s solid South began to crack just a little.